Bokaro Steel can’t take up Sindri

SHASHANK SHEKHAR

Bokaro, July 28: Bokaro Steel’s chief executive officer Anutosh Maitra today said that SAIL would not be able to make use of the defunct Sindri fertiliser plant premises to set up a steel plant because of land and other related issues.

Without mincing words, Maitra told newspersons that given BSL’s bottomlines, SAIL has had to shelve plans to set up steel and fertiliser plants at Sindri. “Bokaro Steel production, which was about 4.4MT a few years ago, has fallen to 3.9MT,” he elaborated.

“But, with the effort of employees, we think production will touch 4.5 MT in coming months and, hopefully, touch 5.5MT by 2017,” he added.

Maitra warned that without cooperation of the state government, district administration and even the judiciary, the future of Bokaro Steel would not look up.

On the 250MW power plant, coming up in Bokaro as a joint venture between DVC and SAIL, the CEO clarified that unless a boundary wall came up on the earmarked land, DVC was in no mood to take up the job.

Maitra rued the ineffectiveness of the law and order machinery, citing the huge mountain of ash accumulated over the years which wasn’t being cleared from the plant at the behest of organisations representing displaced people.

“We have faced more than 200 protests by dozens of outfits, which have hampered the over all growth of the steel plant,” he alleged.

He also made it clear that the plant was in no position to give more jobs to the displaced, but promised to continue efforts at creating other employment opportunities through CSR initiatives.

“We used to have 42,000 employees. But, today we have 17,000 and with them we will try to achieve our objective of recording a profit of Rs 750 crore in 2014-15,” Maitra said.

Yet, the CEO was hopeful as he was expecting a big boom in the steel market in the coming years with domestic demand also picking up.

“Despite new challenges, all units of Bokaro Steel are performing as per expectations and in the right direction. All workers must work in tandem to achieve our goals.”